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Monday, July 20, 2015

Workshop Review - Why we say Why, Mary Flentge

By Bernadette Knight

Why We Say Why! was a practical,
interesting and very worthwhile workshop as it focussed on giving a speaker
useful feedback in an evaluation of a presentation.

In
the introduction, Mary explained she had approached a member to deliver a
prepared speech and was prepared to be evaluated. The audience was to evaluate
the member’s speech using criteria, based on the judge’s form for a speech
contest.

The
workshop commenced with prepared speech from an experienced speaker. This
speaker had been advised to make some errors deliberately and the speech itself
was a complex one to evaluate.

At
the conclusion of the speech, members of the audience were invited to present
their evaluations. As a member delivered their evaluation, Mary Flentge used
the opportunity to demonstrate evaluation techniques which she believed are
essential to help speakers. One such technique is the “sandwich” approach, that
is a commendation, recommendation, commendation – let the speaker know a “good”
point about the speech, followed by a recommend-ation for improvement. Mary stressed that the evaluator should
preface comments with the words e.g. “In my opinion or I believe” because it is
one person’s opinion of the speech and an evaluation should not to be given in the
form of a categorical statement.

In giving a recommendation
the evaluator was encouraged and coached on how to give a “why” the reason
behind the recommendation. For example,

at the opening of the speech I believe you need to pause and “smile” as
a smile builds rapport with
your audience.

In my opinion you could have used more vocal variety as it helps to
keep your audience’s attention.

The
handouts provided gave quite a comprehensive list of aspects of a presentation
to commend/recommend as well as giving examples of how to be a more effective
evaluator by stating “why” a recommendation is made and “how” something can be
improved.

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POWERtalk International is a club based Not-for-profit organisation specialising in coaching in effective public speaking, as well as mentoring and leadership skills. International Convention is held every second year. In 2015, Convention is being held in Rotorua, New Zealand at Novotel Lakeside from 17th to 21st July.

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